Saturday, March 24, 2018
To date, or EVER?
The latest Collectible Auto magazine has a feature on car designs that were halted by WW2. Most automakers had new body and engine designs in the pipeline for '43 and '44 when Pearl Harbor stopped ALL civilian activity. After the war, automakers didn't need new designs for several years; their '42 tooling was still usable, so they used it to satisfy the infinite demand with minimum delay. By '49 when the demand slowed, those prospective '43s looked dated, so the manufacturers started over.
The first paragraph:
WW2 was the biggest and deadliest conflict in human history. It was also the most mechanized to the time.
Most mechanized to the time, yes. But couldn't you take it one step further and say that WW2 was the most mechanized war EVER?
We tend to think of history as a linear increase, but when you stop and look at the wars since 1945, they're LESS mechanized in proportion. Korea was mainly infantry action without a lot of bombs and missiles. More or less a reversion to WW1. Vietnam was a reversion to 1800. Hand to hand jungle fighting with limited support from aircraft. Since then, Iraq was WW1 again, and Afghanistan was 1800 again. Syria might be approaching the WW2 level of missiles and bombs, but most of the action is ground-level artillery.
There hasn't been a war since 1945 involving massive constant action by bombers and submarines and aircraft carriers.
¶ 3:32 PM 
